Pierce Twp. still pursuing Lewis, White Oak land

This aerial image from Google Maps shows the intersection of White Oak and Lewis roads, near Ohio Pike. Pierce Township wants the former water services property to make improvements at the intersection.(Photo: Provided)

Pierce Township is still pursuing a piece of county property at the intersection of Lewis and White Oak roads, near Ohio Pike.

It’s the former Clermont County water services facility and has been vacant for more than a year.

Township officials want the property to help make safety improvements at the intersection, which has several lanes of traffic converging at a single point, and resident Mark Cann asked for an update on the project at a recent township trustees meeting.

“We’re still moving forward with it, and we have some interested parties after we take the right of way out of it to preserve for improving the thoroughfare,” said Assistant Township Administrator Tim Hershner.

Late last year, Pierce Township asked for an updated appraisal on the property, which came back at close to $170,000, Hershner said. There had been another appraisal in 2011.

“We’re anxiously moving forward, but it does take a while,” Hershner said.

Cann also questioned the township’s recent rezoning initiative for that property. “Why do it when we don’t own it?” he asked.

Trustee Bob Pautke said, “there is no rezoning effort aimed at just that property,” and it’s part of a larger area.

Hershner said the rezoning initiative a covers about 23 acres the township wants to include in a planned unit development (PUD).

“We want to move forward and add value to the property so we can move it,” he said. “(The land use plan) calls for it to be commercial, so the natural thing is to move forward.”

The new mixed-use district would help the township build a service road parallel to Ohio Pike and facilitate larger developments in the business district near that area, according to a memo from Hershner to the Clermont County Planning Commission.

Last year Pierce Township trustees considered forming a community improvement corporation to help buy the property from the county, but they put off that decision for now.